Free Dreamers Often Lie by Jacqueline West

of my classmates clustering like flies around the scar.
    “Oh,” I said. “That’s . . . nice.”
    “Would you be willing to tell us a bit about your experiences?” He gestured to the podium. “If you’re feeling up to it, of course.”
    I clutched the edges of my desk. “Sure,” I managed. Casual. Polite. “I’m up to it.”
    I forced myself to my feet. Blurry faces turned with me as I made my way up to the front of the room.
Empty stage. Empty stage.
But the stage wasn’t empty. I was standing on it. I aimed my eyes over everyone’s heads, just like I would do in the auditorium. Still, I could feel Romeo staring at me from the last row, his gaze like a cool, steady stream of air.
    Just play the scene. You’re a girl in a high school classroom, telling everyone about her recent injury. You’re a little tired, and your head hurts. That’s all.
    I smoothed my forehead. Pitched my voice lower.
Your cue.
    “Okay. Um . . . Over winter break, my mother and my sister and I went skiing.” I moved through the recitation, piecing together splinters of memory and fragments of what I’d been told. Beside me, I could see Mr. Ellison’s doughy face light up when I got to the part about CAT scans and cerebral contusions.
    “So it was a linear fracture, not a depressed fracture,” he broke in. “That was lucky. Class, in a depressed fracture, the broken bone moves inward, which puts pressure on the brain. Or Jaye could have sustained a comminuted fracture,in which the bone would have broken into several smaller pieces, and those could lacerate the brain tissue. Very dangerous.” He peered down at my scalp, leaning close enough that I could smell his coffee breath. “And they used staples instead of sutures to close the wound, correct? Would you mind bending forward so everyone can see?”
    I’d heard that Mr. Ellison would swerve to hit small animals on his drive to school, so he could bring in the roadkill for dissection. At the moment, I completely believed it.
    The room was waiting.
    I bowed my head. A collective gasp went up from the class. I could hear them craning in their seats, desks creaking.
    “And what is the name of the part of the skull that was fractured, class?”
    “Frontal bone,” the class chorused.
    “Thank you, Jaye. You can take your seat.”
    I streaked back down the row. My face felt like it had been broiled. I sat down hard at my desk, making the chair’s metal legs scream against the floor. Romeo’s silhouette rippled in my peripheral vision. I leaned on my palm, cutting him off with a curtain of purplish hair.
    “We’ve got both an old and a new student joining us today,” I heard Mr. Ellison say through the watery thumping in my ears. “Rob Mason has just moved here from—where was it, Mr. Mason?”
    “Portland,” said a deep voice to my right.
    Oh god.
    There was more squeaking and shifting of desks. The class’s attention swung away from me like a spotlight moving to another actor.
    Oh my god.
    “And you’re a senior this year, correct?”
    “Right.”
    The voice. I hadn’t dreamed it.
    But I had
recognized
it.
    I peeked at him through the curtain of hair. He was staring straight ahead, not looking at me.
    Oh god oh god oh god.
I had actually called him
Romeo.
    “Welcome to winter in Minnesota,” said Mr. Ellison dryly. “All right, everyone. Take out your books and open to page one fifty-seven . . .”
    I wanted to sink down through the cold tile floor. I wanted to dissolve into tiny blushing bits. Most of all, more than anything, I wanted not to have said what I’d said.
Oh my GOD.
I narrowed my focus to the cap of the pill bottle. Only 6.75 hours until rehearsal. Forty-two more minutes until I could run away from Rob Whatever-His-Name-Actually-Was and pretend that this had never happened.
    Here’s what else had never happened: He had never picked up my hand and raised it to his lips. Even though I knew exactly what it would feel like if he did. Even if